Category: General

The thoughts last week out of using the Tobii eye-tracking system has made me realise why I struggle so much with a touchscreen to type. I'm typing this on my BlackBerry. I'm staring at the screen, because (as with a full-size keyboard) I touch type. On my Android phone, because there is no physical reference … Continue reading Touch typing

One of the scariest things about the whole "Web 2.0" thing for IT and IS management is that it seems to break the long-held problem-solution paradigm that's served the industry so indifferently for the past 50 years. As we've begun our roll-out of Google Docs, core in our thinking has been a team- and user-centred … Continue reading It’s all in the timing

I've been mulling over the ideas expressed by Don Tapscott at Atmosphere 2010 (and no doubt in his new book Macrowikinomics) about how the combination of Web 2.0 and the maturing digital generation is forcing organisations to re-evaluate traditional models of management and leadership. Rather than "coming from the top", leadership needs to be demonstrated … Continue reading Challenging leadership

Project achievements included: - kick off meeting with the partner firm and contractors for London networks - exploratory meeting with procurement firm for our managed printing service project - first cut of a business architecture for content creation, management and collaboration infrastructure Additionally: - experiments with Gladinet and Cloud Storage (very interesting) - tried out … Continue reading Weeknote 19 – n… n… n… n…

A fascinating afternoon spent with @ferrar and @kelfish from our Digital team down at Essential Travel - a company set up and run by two old friends of mine. Essential have a business that sells travel insurance, airport parking and other travel-related services over the web. Usability (or lack of) directly impacts their bottom line, … Continue reading Eyetracking Google Instant

The three most lazily titled management theories in history are Theory X , Theory Y (both Douglas MacGregor) and Theory Z (Maslow). These guys need a bit more pizzazz in their theory (see my own 'My Manager is a ****er' Theory, for example). The three Theories are simplistic, but quite useful in classifying management behaviours. … Continue reading Theories X/Y/Z

I'm about to spend a reasonable amount of time, effort and money on installing some software for around a dozen users to cope with the demands of one of our client's use of encrypted S/MIME email. Whilst there is a Firefox browser plug-in that supposedly supports S/MIME, we've taken the decision to install a stand … Continue reading Insecure security

The history of transactional relational database systems is one entwined in attempts by people from the IT world to classify things in an unambiguous and structured manner. Underpinning the principals of relational database theory is the idea that a piece of data should exist only once, and in one place. This has it's history in … Continue reading Eat sh*t

Project achievements included: - started the deployment of the new service hours agreements - structuring the post-pilot Google Docs work - starting to get alignment on the global positioning work - company-wide announcements of the London networks project - sponsor identified and approached for the managed print service project Additionally: - coped with a DNS … Continue reading Weeknote 18 – Riding the wave of busy

Last February I made some notes about some technology that I was using at the time. Thought it about time for an update. The biggest change in my information consumption has been the acquisition of an Android phone. Rarely is it used for phone calls, but Google Listen (for podcasts), NewsRob (a view of interesting … Continue reading More current stuff I like…